[Shanyrria Shayarus]

What is the story behind this decision ?

People would simply circumvent the limitation by creating a new account (new player name with the same CD-Key) or not? (Don't worry, I didn't do that.)

The disadvantages of special races, like extremely slow leveling (ever tried to level up a werecat ?) overweight their advantages by far, so there is not the risk of the server crawling with only special characters either.

I rather see that the server is flooded with human characters because of the extra talent at level 1.

This is one of the decisions I understand least, to be honest.

[WilliamDraco]

You can't circumvent it with a new player name. Thay has player names tied to CD-Keys, one could only dodge it by actually buying a second copy of the game.

As to the why, the one-note states the following:

"It is important to first point out and understand that Thay is a land ruled by elitist, racist, and evil human wizards. Humans, far and away, are the most predominant race. The population of Thay is humans 62%, gnolls 10%, orcs 10%, dwarves 8%, goblins 5%, halflings 4%, and all others combined 1%. Thay is not, and never will be, a place of extreme racial diversity.

In an attempt to keep the racial makeup of player characters somewhat proportional to the racial makeup of this gameworld, players are initially limited to creating only one subrace or special template character. However, you may create one more with each existing character who reaches a level of notoriety equivalent to that of a legion Captain, temple Clergy, or guild Veteran Member, up to a limit of 3 special characters per player. The special characters a player has, and the number they can create, can be found in the Character Options section of the in-game Player Menu."

[Bertram Anders]

WilliamDraco nailed it. Additionally, the reason we have the special races that we do is because they have source references to being found in Thay.

[Shanyrria Shayarus]

Thank you people for your good answers !

- Shanyrria Shayarus